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Episode 1 - Copying
2.5k Plays11 months ago
We dive in to the sticky, but important topic of COPYING. Is it OK? Is it helpful? Is it a normal part of the artistic process? Let's discuss.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Host Backgrounds
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hmm
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And welcome to Woodworking is Bullshit, a new podcast that is centered around art, creativity, and conversations about design. I'm your host, Paul Jasper. I'm a scientist by day, woodworker by night for the past 15 years, and I'm joined with my two other co-hosts, Eric Curtis.
00:00:36
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a professional thirst trap and a professional full-time woodworker. You might recognize him from his hit show on Netflix. And I'm also joined by our other host, Mary Tsai, who is an AI designer by day. Very interesting. We'll definitely hit on her AI background. Former architect and hobbyist contemporary woodworker by night.
Topic Introduction: Stealing Like an Artist
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So the way we're going to run this podcast, this is the first episode, of course, the way we're going to run this podcast is we're just going to get right into it. And we like to start by asking questions. And, uh, we think that we have a really interesting question today. So I'm going to pass it to Mary to introduce today's topic. Thanks, Paul. Uh, so to kick it off, I'm going to present a question that's always been really hotly contested, but seems to be at the core of a lot of our discussions.
Experiences with Design Copying
00:01:27
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And that is how do you steal like an artist? Um, this topic.
00:01:31
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was discussed by Austin Cleon, who wrote his book Steelich in Arts in 2012. And this is not new in the world of art. So what do you guys think on this topic of copying? Have you had your work stolen? How did you feel? Before I hand it off, I'll answer. So I have had my designs copied and kind of shocked me at first. Mostly the speed of replication, to be honest. I think I posted it
00:01:57
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on the internet one day and then literally four days later I saw another post. I was like wait that's mine. I was a little shocked I guess and annoyed but to be honest like I kind of got over it and I forgot about it a few days later because mostly the design had been changed in a way that I mean it's clearly a direct copy of mine but the design had been changed in terms of proportion that it looked so awkward and like very uncomfortable to look at to be honest and
00:02:26
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that kind of placated my mind a little bit. I was like, okay, it's like not, not very good. Um, and I, it made me feel a little bit more confident in my own skills as, as like a designer, as an artist, um, of like, yeah, I feel really happy with my final result. Um, and overall, like, you know, it's just a hobby for a lot of these people. So it's fine. I might feel differently if they were selling it. Um, I would definitely want credit, but I don't know in the end, like it might not really matter.
00:02:56
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Um, yeah, so I think that, yeah, you guys, I know you guys have different perspectives. Well, before I state my perspective, can I ask you, um, a really fun thing to do on an audio program right off the jump and describe this piece for me? Cause I'm curious what aspects of this object were stolen from you and what did you see about it? You were like, that's my piece. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a table called the inverse table. It's just super simple where it's like one side.
00:03:25
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has this large cutout and the cutout is put on the other side to create the table base. And it's a coffee table. So really simple. And the way that I had put it together, I really worked a long time on proportions. Does this feel right with the tabletop?
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Um, and then the, the copied version, they like made it really tall. I think they made it into, um, like a hallway console kind of, so they made it really tall, really skinny. And then the top, they like truncated the tabletop to the same length as the table base. And it just looked incredibly awkward. Like if you have a tabletop, you usually want it to overhang a little bit. Um, so it just, it just felt wrong. If you can kind of understand what I'm visually describing.
00:04:14
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For sure. I think that's the reason why getting copied doesn't bother me because people often when they copy, or at least in my experience, when they copy, they reinterpret as best they can. Um, but that doesn't often lead to an object that's better than the original, which is why I have no problem copying myself because I'm not as good as the people I copy. So it's a great starting point to do an interesting thing.
00:04:39
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So Mary, one of the thoughts I had is you said, well, it was super simple and it got copied in four days. Immediately, the thought that came to mind is, is making things that are so simple actually a risk?
Creativity and Imitation in Education
00:04:54
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Maybe. Okay. So when I say it's super simple, it is a simple form, but it took me so long to come up with that design. It wasn't simple for me. It, I went through so many iterations, so many tests, prototypes, and everything to get to that final version. So maybe that's why I was a little annoyed because I went through all of this design iteration for you to just like knock this out really quickly. But.
00:05:19
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I think that's the danger though in making simple pieces is that they're easily copied. If they're very complex and they have a multitude of techniques, each of which has to be individually researched and understood, it's almost uncopyable.
00:05:34
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because it's so complex. You know, there's some of the pieces I make and you know, I like to, you know, I like complexity. So it's like whether it has hand engraving or pyrography or that with marketry on top of carving on top of, you know, and it has like three or four or five different elements, all that are extremely difficult to copy in their own right and you nest them on top of each other, it makes it actually quite difficult to copy. Yeah, it's almost like a built in safeguard. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you've still had people copy you.
00:06:05
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Is it when they were simple? Is it uncomfortable? Or is it just not economic to copy it? Right? Does it not make financial sense for you to do the thing? The activation energy for them to copy it would be way more than it was worth. Right. And so I think for simple forms, people see a simple form, they think, that's a thing that I can
00:06:29
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batch out really quickly. I'm going to take that idea and try to make a profit from it. They see handmade objects, something that is hand carved, something, hand cut joiner, whatever it is. And immediately they're like, well, that's going to lose money. So I'm not going to bother to, to replicate it, which tells us where our value is. Right. The value is less on the object and more on the profit. And I don't, Mary, I want to be clear. I don't think I'm saying, I'm not saying that about you, right? That's not,
00:06:56
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That's not the implication I'm trying to make, but I think that people do look, and I think we're all guilty of it to an extent, right? You see an object, it's a beautiful object, it's a well-proportioned object, something that somebody clearly spent a lot of time and expertise developing, and they go, well, I can do that simpler and still make money, so why not? Yeah, that's true. I mean, think of the number of times you've seen something in like, yeah, I could do that.
00:07:24
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Like every, every woodworker thinks that I think when they pass something like, Oh yeah, I could do that. And then just like, go ahead and snatch it and you know, copy and take it. But, um, I mean, yeah, I would agree. I think that simpler makes it easier to copy.
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Maybe this first episode is me realizing I got to go to production then. No, no, no. I think contemporary, people love contemporary stuff and they love to copy it. Like IKEA type design is very elegant and very clean lines. And I feel like that's copied a lot more than much more complex and much more intricate designs just because of the ease of it. But anyway, this brings up another question, which is,
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Is it okay to copy? Is there a right and a wrong way to copy? I would like to ask that next. Whether there's a right and a wrong way I feel like is is a separate question from is it okay to copy and I think yeah, it's okay to copy. Like I'm gonna come down firmly on the side of the fence. Yes, it's okay to copy me copy me. I copy other people to pretend like I'm the first person to come up with a pedestal table is the most
00:08:34
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ridiculously arrogant statement I could possibly make. So take the designs that I'm doing, and I think I'm coming up with them in an original way. I'm taking all of the input I'm grabbing from other artists, from other media, and I'm mashing them together in a new way that I think is interesting and engaging, or at least is to me.
00:08:55
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take that and rip it off. Like the only way for you to grow as an artist is to copy. I think the bigger problem that we face in this particular age that we live in is the learning process is public, right? We immediately start posting our progress on social media for people to follow along to join. And there's a lot of value in that. But what that means is early on in your process, the way you learn is to replicate and then you get blamed for copying.
00:09:26
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Yeah, at a certain point, like you kind of, when you're early on in your journey, like students, I guess, like when you're early on and you're like trying to, you know, drink in all of this creativity and educate yourself on like, what is out there? I mean, that's why we, you know, why we study like art history and things like that. There is a certain point in which you kind of not, not flip that switch, but you know, you start producing your own creative pieces.
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and put those out into the world. So you kind of have to realize at what point do I then want to start putting out something not original, because I don't know if originals exists, but something that you spent time and iterated and thought of the design. And, you know, like, when does that switch happen, I guess? Like, when do you stop copying and then start thinking like, oh, maybe I should, you know, start
00:10:22
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putting my own stuff out
00:10:37
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Morris and mission-style furniture and all the styles that we know so well to thinking, what the hell do I want to make that's more uniquely me?
Creative Risk, Reputation, and Iterative Design
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What's my artistic voice? And that, for me, was like a switch. But I don't think that's always the case for everyone. I think it's usually a progression. And the progression goes something like, at least for me, it goes something like this. I want to learn x.
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who does X really well, okay? And you identify a few people who you like for whatever you want to learn. And you start copying them just to get the language, just to sort of get some proficiency in the lexicon of whatever it is. Is it, you know, whether it's a technique or a style, you know, you just sort of copy it, but not for sale. You just sort of copy it to understand it. And then when you have like a reasonable
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approximation of the thing you like to like okay i'm starting to understand what this is about now what do i want to do with it and that's where you move off the copying so i i only do the copying as part of the education process to try and understand what the languages of this thing that i like and then i immediately start to combine it with my other ideas that are more uniquely mine and evolve it away from the copy
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But to, I guess playing devil's advocate a little bit in design school, we are encouraged to think as far out of the box as possible and don't think about the process of getting there of like what it takes to like what skills are involved, et cetera. So a lot of the professors are like, just, just sketch whatever and think about, you know, like come up with designs that are just like so wild and probably not being practical. And then you'll worry about the practical stuff later. So, you know,
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maybe it depends on your training, I guess, because for me that that is how I originally started. And especially in architecture, like the number of students who produce like the most insane looking buildings that would never like structurally be held up. That's how you develop your creative design vision, and then you start to apply practical and realistic structural things to it. So
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I'm debating this thing in my head for the moment of like, I don't know the architecture world, right? That's not a world I'm familiar with. I envy it, frankly. I would love to have been an architect in another life, but I wonder if that approach to teaching design is as much based in teaching you the tools of good design as it is teaching you how to build a reputation because their goal in having you graduate from architecture school is to be a successful architect.
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And to be a successful architect, you have to build a reputation as a good architect, right? I would imagine this is all speculation. So is teaching a student early on to don't copy because other people have done it. Start building your reputation already. Be loud, be brash, like figure out how to make people stand in awe of you. Is that also a valuable aspect of that education that is separate from design, but they're, they're somehow co-mingled?
00:13:50
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Yeah, that's true. It could be. I guess, to be fair, there's different programs that value different things. So like, I went to a program where they, they push that, you know, like, think big, think big and bold, and don't care about practical stuff. But then when you actually got into when I got my first job, I was like, how do I
00:14:14
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do this. Like I had to learn so fast on that job is very much sink or swim. So I was like, Oh, I don't actually really know how to detail all these things that other programs do focus on that don't really focus on the theoretical part as much. So yeah, it kind of depends in a practical setting in like a professional setting. It didn't, I guess it didn't really help me. Um,
00:14:38
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Yeah. I don't know. I see. I see this as a continuum. You can take small iterative steps and evolve your style forward from copying an original form or Mary, you're talking about taking a huge leap down the line all in one shot. Yeah. Sometimes you leap so far. It's not even buildable. Yeah.
00:14:59
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And I think I've, I think I've tried both of those things. I think I do a lot of the iterative single step evolution forward. And I've also tried to just throw caution to the wind and just like, woo.
00:15:13
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And I don't often land in a good place when I do that. I usually find myself, I'm like, I don't really like this. So I tend to do the more iterative. Just to give you an example, I wouldn't poop with the iterative approach because, for example, one of the world's hottest artists right now, Takashi Murakami, right?
00:15:37
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a big part of how he got his start was taking traditional Japanese paintings and reimagining them, which is in essence copying, but infusing it with his own life. So it's like, you know,
00:15:49
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Tempest fighting a whirlwind was a famous Japanese painting and he reimagined it and the same elements are there, the same guy with the same sword with the same Tempest coming and he's fighting it but the two are just so radically different. So it was a copy but not really like a reimagining of a copy and I see that as like an iterative kind of approach as opposed to like
00:16:16
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I just imagine something that you've never seen before and just go for it. Yeah. I think I struggle between the two because I really like the idea of, you know, going big and bold and then figuring out how to get to that, I guess. Because I think for me personally, it pushes
00:16:44
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me as a designer because I am someone who is very planned and practical to force myself to think outside the box. It's just such a big leap that I'm then forced to abandon my very intense planning steps. And this can come later once I figure out the design. But this is the first part. This is the exploratory phase of what could I possibly make? And then planning happens after that. Let me ask a related question now.
00:17:12
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How do you borrow inspiration for a piece without it being copying? I don't know if you can. I disagree. I disagree. I think there are there are basic building blocks of design that are impossible not to
00:17:37
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repeat, right? And so if you see an object in your inspired by that object to make a thing, and this is often where I come from when I'm searching for ideas, I kind of, I have a weird scatter shot approach that kind of combines the two things that you guys are talking about. Like I'll start with a concept and have an idea of like what it is I'm trying to visually express, but I'm not confident enough in my ability to see that object in my own mind.
00:18:03
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to then just draw it out and make the thing. I then seek out visual inspiration until I see a thing that's like, it's almost like a framework for an idea, right? It's a starting point and I'll see that thing and I'll just go, oh, I'll just make that. And then I start the process of replicating that, but in that process, it inevitably diverges down different pathways and it begins to become this articulation
00:18:29
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that only I can do because I'm making it mostly by hand, right? And the whole by hand versus by machine CNC, all of those are different conversations. But there is this ability to be present with the object as it's coming to life that I think for me, in my experience, in my creative practice, allows me to use a thing as a base inspiration and set off to copy that and then just allow that thing to blossom into its own object.
00:18:58
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But that will inevitably pull basic principles and basic core points from the object. That is, you could say it's copying like all, if I'm making a cabinet, for example, I'll often pull an idea, look for a cabinet and go, Oh, that cabinet has really sexy proportions. I'm just going to use what I think those proportions probably are. And then it ends up being an entirely different cabinet just happens to have that same foundational building block of proportions.
00:19:26
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Or it could be texture, or it could be color. That's it, yeah. So I have bits and pieces from other fields of art floating around in my head. I may have seen something in the ceramic field, or I may have seen something by a glassblower, or I may have seen architecture, like a certain shape in architecture. And I think, oh my god, that shape is so beautiful. What if I put that shape
00:19:50
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like reimagined it into like a 1700s style cabinet. But it has that shape integrated into the interior somehow. So it's like, it's exactly what you said, Eric, you see an element you like, or you can identify an element you like, or multiple elements, and then you swirl them together in new combinations with your own design ideas. And
00:20:13
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It winds up evolving into something totally different, but I could show you on every piece. I could say I got this piece from this inspiration and this carving came from that idea. Right. And you'll see the lake came from that idea. Absolutely. Yeah.
Inspiration vs. Copying in Design
00:20:30
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I mean, I'm dealing with that right now with the, I'm dealing with that with the table build I'm doing at the current moment, right? It was, I have a slab. I need a dining table. How do I make the base as minimal as possible? And I saw it out.
00:20:42
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inspiration until I found a table where I was like, this is perfect. This has already been done. And that was the Nakashima trestle table. And then it was a question of, well, they've already done it. It's already perfect. How the hell am I going to do it any better than that? Right? So you tinker, you play with things, you take the base and you go, okay, there's a really nice subtle curve under the foot there. And how can I take that post that's just so simple and upright and it's, it's perfectly minimal in its approach to
00:21:12
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highlighting the beauty of this piece of wood on top. How do I replicate that in a way that's not ceiling but different? So I split it up into two posts and tried to replicate the thinking of the context of where this table is going to live. I tried to leave enough negative space in the middle of that post so that you can see through the table because my house is small. I didn't want it to be large and blocky and take up a lot of visual sight lines. Right. And so now all of a sudden,
00:21:39
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Just through a little tiny shift of understanding where this table is going to live. It has shifted from a replication of the Nakashima piece to an iteration of the Nakashima piece. And then by the time I'm done with that, I was looking at it today thinking, all right, I need to add a little curve here. I need to just soften this edge a little bit. And where the Nakashima piece is. I lack the architectural vocabulary. So forgive me, Mary, but like it's, it's, it's not brutalist, but it is, it's, it's.
00:22:06
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strong some it's visually strong, right? It's robust visually. And and mine is becoming more delicate in a way just by adding a soft subtle curve or adding an edge profile here. And so it's evolving away even more through the process of the piece of their through the process of making the piece rather. So then what do you consider like that line between copying and inspiration and like what
00:22:31
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what would you have to do to your table to say that it's a copy? Like exactly replicate Nakashima's table base, you think? Like at what point can you modify in which it's inspiration? I think that's that's it's it's a great question. I think it is. It's partially intent, which is really hard to measure. Right? Because you can
00:22:54
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you can have an idea, well, let's take simultaneous revelation, right? This idea of two people coming to the same conclusion at the same time, right? The invention of the light bulb happened multiple times, just happened to be that Thomas Edison had the economic advantage in the business acumen to produce the light bulb for Americans. So how do you do all this analogy?
00:23:19
Speaker
He's not only a thirst trap. He's also really smart. But, but there is this thing, right? There's this thing of, I may come up with an idea and it's, it happened completely organically and it's, it's perfect and it's beautiful. And then I seek out inspiration on the internet. And next thing I know, Mary has made the same damn piece and we've never talked about it. And you just go, well,
00:23:46
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how am I supposed to make this piece now that I think is great because people are gonna assume that it's a rip off of Mary's idea. So there is a bit of the intent there that matters. But again, like how you measure that is now we're just having a conversation about creative honesty.
00:24:04
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I don't know that you measure intent. It's very simple. You look at it, and if it looks exactly like the other person's, you're like, what a ripoff. It's that simple, right? So I think it's just a visual. There are artists though, where you're like, that reminds me, or like even songs, like that reminds me of that other artist. Is that
00:24:23
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If that like phrase, you know, comes into your mind, like that reminds me, does that mean it's copying? Is it so, so basically you're talking about queen versus vanilla ice. Yes. Well, all right. So let's, let's take Nakashima as an example of this as well. Right. Because anytime you put a live edge slab on anything at all, people are going to go, Oh, that's a Nakashima ripoff. And it's like, my man, my man did an event slabbing trees.
00:24:52
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He just he built enough of a reputation where every time people see that they associate that with him and that's wonderful Great brand This is a great segue into the river table Let's talk about everyone's favorite form
00:25:12
Speaker
The River Table. Oh, man. You're really trying to start a fist fight tonight, huh? Look, I just had to ask it. So we all are familiar with River Tables. Maybe some of our listenership knows about the kerfuffle that went down with Gregory Klassen and his trying to copyright the name River Table and what went down with that.
00:25:42
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All right, so I should give a little background. Okay, so let me let me give some background because I shouldn't assume everyone knows this story. So, you know, river tables, they've been around for quite some time. Greg class in who makes very beautiful river tables, he actually in lays glass down the center as opposed to epoxy. Thank God that you know, they're very beautiful. And as a business maneuver, and I think to give some
00:26:07
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peace of mind to his customer base. I believe, if I have my facts straight, he tried to patent the name River Table or River Collection.
00:26:16
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And he wasn't saying you can't make one. I think through his business maneuvering, it was basically you can't call it that. And what happened was once he got that patent approved and then he sent it to eBay and Etsy and a whole bunch of people's shops got shut down immediately because these platforms didn't want to deal with
00:26:38
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copyright issues. And all these people got extremely mad, right? Because they make a living off making river tables, I assume. And they reacted very poorly to this. So while it was it seemed like to me, and maybe I have my facts a little wrong, correct me if I if I do, but it seemed like an like a totally viable business maneuver is what he did. But what happened, the backlash was a bit unexpected. And everyone was pointing out anathema from the community. Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah. And everyone was like, you didn't make the first river table. There's evidence that the river table existed before you. That's all true. I think that's all been verified. He was not the inventor of the river table, but he was the first one to put a copyright on the name. So that's my understanding of the situation. Now, how do we feel about river tables in this? I think your understanding of the situation is, is pretty accurate. Um, the idea that you can copyright a form is.
00:27:37
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wildly irritating to me. And it's the same in music like this, this concept that you can have a thing and then you have ownership over that thing over an idea, right? You're not taking ownership over the object, you're taking ownership over an idea is
00:27:55
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that's narcissism at its highest level to assume that you're the first person to come up with a concept of I don't even want to use the river table as a concept for for this example, because I don't mean I don't know him personally, I don't mean to, to, you know, throw throw hands over there. But this concept that you can write a pop tune, and
00:28:18
Speaker
Take intellectual ownership over a baseline as though people haven't been playing that series of notes in Western culture for the last 1,500 goddamn years. Get over yourself. The issue is that it is an economic problem, right? People want to make money, and in order to make money, they have to be known as the person who does X, which is not their fault. That's just the society we live in.
00:28:44
Speaker
And they are doing active harm to the creative community and the woodworking community, specifically in this instance, by telling other people that they're not allowed to explore that form and drive it farther because you are now stagnating an idea by not allowing other people to explore it. Yes, people will rip you off. That's the nature of being a creative person. I don't know how to comfort you in your economic loss on that.
00:29:08
Speaker
Like pull your big boy pants up and deal with that fact. That's just life. But don't stagnate the creative, don't stagnate the craft because you want some other person to make a few grand less. That's just, that's selfishness. I don't, there's more important things than you. Get over yourself. That's my, I'm getting off my soap box now.
00:29:30
Speaker
Do you think that he made it like river tables and epoxy tables more popular because of like the controversy? Absolutely. I think he did it. For sure, for sure. I do believe he was one of the main sort of provocateurs that brought river tables into the public lens. Yeah, because I feel like I saw epoxy tables explode in popularity after that. So
00:29:59
Speaker
Well, and weirdly enough, not like not many people do glass river tables anymore. I mean, one of my first pieces was a glass river table. Uh, and haven't made a river table since, but I, yeah, I remember like just like seeing on like Pinterest or like Instagram, like the number of epoxy tables. I was like, Oh my God, what is happening? Like this is, it's not often that you like a fad takes over. I feel like we're working and this like, yeah.
00:30:29
Speaker
Hey, Eric, I thought architects didn't copy. Wasn't it not what you heard earlier in the episode?
River Tables and Originality Debate
00:30:35
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I heard some bullshit up front about these huge jumps in their design vision. And then it's like, yeah, my first piece is a rumored table.
00:30:49
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just just tell me that architecture is architecture is bullshit. That's why I left. I never claimed architects won't copy because lots of copying happens. I definitely copy. I will not claim to not copy. So I think the river table is a unique example in this regard, though, because it is a perfect form for
00:31:17
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people early on in their journey in woodworking to replicate and feel like they made a thing with relative ease. I'm not saying it's easy. I don't mean to belittle it. It still takes some technical understanding, and you still have to actually do the bloody thing. But it's not like building a tree house, which takes understanding of structure, architectural design, et cetera, et cetera. It's not like building a back deck.
00:31:46
Speaker
It's pouring epoxy in between two slabs and then buying metal base legs from Amazon and tacking it on and feeling like you did a thing. And that's wonderful for a lot of people as a gateway into furthering their own understanding of the craft. So I feel like to cut Greg class in just a little bit of credit here, it did explode because it is a relatively easy form to replicate. I have to say this.
00:32:13
Speaker
I hate epoxy river tables. The glass ones I can kind of do. They have an elegance to them that I like, but the epoxy, it just kills me. I hate them. There, I said it. Does anybody like them? I would agree, yes. Okay. The last question, as long as we're agreed on river tables. I guess the last question is, you know,
00:32:43
Speaker
And we've touched on this already. Have you been copied and how did it make you feel when you were copied? And was there any upshot? Did that change anything about how you view it? Do you have people asking you to copy things via DM? Oh, I have a lot of people who ask me for plans, actually. It's like, no, I definitely don't have time for that. But I literally never even thought about it until I got those messages. I was like, oh, it's like weird that people would actually like, I guess it's me and my
00:33:12
Speaker
insecurities being like, Oh, people like actually would want to like copy something I designed. And then I felt like flattered, I guess. Um, you know, imitation or what's the phrase like copying is a form of flattery. Imitation is a serious form of flattery. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I felt fine with it afterwards, to be honest. But yeah, well, you guys never responded. Like, what, what if people copied of yours? Well, for me, the things that they've got, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.
00:33:42
Speaker
People have copied several pieces of mine and I, in fairness, openly encourage them to. And I find it quite nice when they do, right? Like there's this, I attempt to come at it from the point of assuming people are well-intentioned until proven otherwise. And I think oftentimes people will see an object that I've made
00:34:07
Speaker
And they are inspired by it for some reason, right? That for whatever the thing is that speaks to them, and they are motivated to replicate that and create that beauty in their own lives. And that's, that's a wonderful place as a former teacher. That's like the perfect place for a human being to be. So when people copy me, it's like
00:34:31
Speaker
to when I have conversations with them, they have they're beaming with pride about what they've accomplished. And like, to have the arrogance to shut that down, because it looks like the thing that I made is like, I don't, it seems, again, as as somebody who really enjoys teaching, and we've all been beginners at some point, if I made a thing that looked like somebody else's, and then I shot them a DM, like, look at the thing I did. And they were like,
00:35:01
Speaker
What the hell, man? I would have been devastated, you know? I'm just imagining you encouraging me, man. I imagine you encouraging people. We're like, yeah, definitely, coffee me. And then once they've made it, they're like, what the hell? What did you do? What was a huge day? That would be very funny, actually. I'm not going to lie. He copied me.
00:35:26
Speaker
So I've had a few things copied that were more simple pieces. At first, I was like irritated like, come on, really? I mean, it seems so lazy. But with time, I sort of came to where you were, which is like, if this makes you happy, and this is what's accessible to you, and, and maybe you don't have you don't haven't had a lot of time to develop design ideas, you know what?
00:35:48
Speaker
If this makes your life better, you go ahead and copy it. So when I get asked, Hey, can I make, would you mind if I use this idea or borrow this? I always say yes. And that actually, it doesn't bother me anymore. But I always say something along the lines of, I can't wait to see how you evolve this into your own language eventually. Like I give them that push that I think they need to kind of like,
00:36:12
Speaker
I like copy it and then swirl your own shit into it because actually I would find that really interesting. And some people have made some awesome, awesome additions and iterations to pieces that I originally started. And it's kind of fun. Yeah. It's fun to see where people take your thought and go with it in ways that you wouldn't have done. Yeah. I think it was same for like techniques too, like Kumiko.
Unique Craft Techniques and Personal Journeys
00:36:39
Speaker
I've seen so many people do the same, like.
00:36:42
Speaker
also know how pattern but like the way they apply it is super cool. And yes, yeah, that's, that's one of my favorites. All right, well, that is a lot about copying and how to steal like an artist. I think, you know, we're of the opinion that copying is part of learning. But there are sort of limits on how people react viscerally, how close or how far it is from a visual example and the intent.
00:37:10
Speaker
And then I guess I think we also agree that it's pretty awesome to take something and evolve it forward. I think it seems like in most cases, if it's not a huge commercial enterprise, but most woodworkers that we know, they sort of like seeing that happen. So that seems to be, I think, where we've landed, if I summarize that correctly. Now, we're going to switch gears now. We have a new segment coming because we don't want to be heavy and heady all day.
00:37:39
Speaker
which was, we wanted to talk about sort of our history a little bit, but not in a boring way. So I would ask, what was your first successful piece that you ever made as a woodworker? Was it a copy? So Mary, what was your first successful piece? Oh yeah, I know this instantly. The first successful piece, what I'm defining as the first piece I was truly happy with,
00:38:07
Speaker
was something a, it was a table that I made after I visited the Martin house in Buffalo by Frank Lloyd Wright. Um, so he has these stained glass windows called the tree of life and they're like pretty, I think they're pretty famous. So if you just Google like tree of life, stained glass windows, et cetera, you'll see that. And then I, I had like, I like instantly knew what I wanted to translate those into. So I have a Frank Lloyd Wright, um, tree of life inspired.
00:38:34
Speaker
table. I have a coffee table and a dining table now that utilizes that kind of pattern within the stained glass window. And that was the first time I was like, I'm really, really happy with what I've produced because it's something taken directly from architecture. It's like my background and something that I love, something that I have always wanted to draw inspiration from, but had a hard time
00:38:56
Speaker
articulating it into a furniture piece. It's always been like architecture to architecture or something like that. So taking something that's large scale into something smaller scale is something that I've tried to do many times. And that was the first time that I thought I did it successfully. Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
Now, do you wish you had drawn the tree of life or that you were like, do you, as opposed to borrowing that element, as you advanced now, do you wish like, shit, I wish I could draw that de novo as opposed to borrowing it. Do you ever have that thought or is that just me? I don't know. Sometimes like I did a lot of iterations on it. It's not an exact like replica of that design. It's a simplified, um, version of it where I deleted, you know, certain elements, et cetera, and changed angles or whatever.
00:39:45
Speaker
I did a lot of iterations where I was like, maybe I don't need to, you know, copy from this tree of life that the fact that I'm like starting on this design path is good enough. And I did other patterns, but I wanted to pay homage to, you know, something that I really, really fell in love with when I, when I saw it in person. So that's why I decided to stick with it. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. That's a good example. How about you, Eric? What was your first successful piece? So,
00:40:12
Speaker
We need to distinguish are we talking and maybe I have to make this decision. Are we talking about first successful piece as a craftsman or first successful piece as a designer? Oh, shit. Did you really have to bring that up? Well, so here's the reason I ask. Right. Mary comes at this from a different path than you and I did. Right. She came at it from she learned that the craft of being a designer before she learned the craft of woodworking.
00:40:40
Speaker
So you have a different approach where I think most people in the woodworking community learn the craft of physically making an object first. And then they go, well, how the hell do I make this interesting? So that, that I should speak from my own experience. That was my experience. I wanted, I saw somebody cutting joinery by hand. I went, holy shit. I want to do that with my life. I don't know how, I don't know what that looks like, but that's what I'm going to do. And then it wasn't until later on where I went,
00:41:08
Speaker
Oh, I actually have a voice and I want to articulate my thoughts and figure out how to communicate through visual forms. So with that, Eric, how long did that take to go from the doer to the visioneer? Seven, eight years.
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah, me too. It was about 10 years. There was, there are kind of three distinct moments in my woodworking path. The first was when I realized I wanted to be a woodworker. It was a very clear moment in time. Um, and that I think was 2009, I think. Um, and then the second was the first time I ever made a successful piece, which was again, it's, it's a ripoff and we'll get into that. But.
00:41:52
Speaker
Uh, that was the very first time where I was like, Oh, I'm actually good at this craft. I can, I could maybe do this. Uh, it wasn't a river table. It wasn't a river table. Uh, and then the third iteration was when I realized I had a voice and I stumbled upon that accidentally, which was in 2017. Um, so the first piece that.
00:42:14
Speaker
I think was ever a success was when I was in school up at CFC doing the nine month program. And our first big piece, the first piece I had to design the first piece I had ever designed. I didn't know how to design anything. I was a clown who grew up on construction sites and decided I want to be a furniture maker. And he was like, you have to design an object. I was like, I just I can cut dovetails. Can I just do that? Because that's all I got. I'm a one trick pony. And my teacher, Alan Lewis, who
00:42:43
Speaker
God bless the man has had at the time, very different viewpoints on design and build than I did at that moment in my career. And I think this is the only time I think it was ever frustrated with me was I just got to a point where I was like, I can't draw. I don't know how to articulate what I'm attempting to say visually.
00:43:07
Speaker
what the hell do I do? And he just literally put a book in front of me. And I was like, that blanket chest is kind of cool. He's like, just fucking make that then. And that's what I started out doing. I think that was a really core moment in my design philosophy was, was him just being just go make that and it was a blanket chest from Sidney Barnsley around the turn of the 20th century. Arts and crafts style, big oak blanket chest. And
00:43:37
Speaker
I will say I worked my ass off on that piece. And it is, to say it's a rip off of the Barnsley piece, I don't think would be an overstatement, but it is a taking a piece that was 110 years old and reimagining that for contemporary furniture. So it is in some ways an iteration. But at the end of that piece, we were having the crit. And I'll just kind of looked over at me and like nodded at me like, all right,
00:44:06
Speaker
All right, you pulled it off. Good job. And I was like, Oh, I think, I think I did good validation. Yeah. Yeah. I still have it. Still use it every day. I remember that. No, it was pretty sweet. I remember that. Yeah. Especially like the big epoxy port on the middle. I worked hard on that one.
00:44:31
Speaker
And now we have to add purple, which I think is very 2012, but it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. No, no, melted crayons, I think. Now we have to add clown to the list of Eric's credentials. It's like, uh, professional woodworker, uh, uh, Netflix superstar, uh, personal thirst trap and professional clown Eric. I got a lot of options in the fire, man.
00:45:04
Speaker
It's like it's just yours you don't even have to share it Yeah, well I always don't want to do mine now cuz I just want to keep talking about you being a thirst Don't worry well plenty of time for that
00:45:27
Speaker
That brings up our last segment, but before we go to the last segment about Eric's first job. My first successful piece, I learned how to do woodworking from a neighbor, an 80-year-old gentleman across the street, Hal.
00:45:46
Speaker
He said, we're going to make something. We're going to make a stool, and that'll show you all the different operations and machines. So that was definitely, and we still have that stool in our house. I used it today, as a matter of fact, to hang my porch wing back up now that it's getting nicer out.
00:46:02
Speaker
But that stool is a constant reminder of like where I started. Eric, it was just like you said, it was like just start doing the how of woodworking because we're living so difficult and it takes so many years to learn how. So it was just a very simple stool. It was not a ripoff because he drew it out of his own mind on graph paper one day. So I can say it's not a ripoff. But I don't like that successful from the idea of like execution. But my first piece that I thought was like, yes,
00:46:30
Speaker
It came much later. I would say it's in the last few years where it was like all my own design ideas that have evolved over all this time. I don't know what the piece is per se. I don't know if it was like the coffin jewelry chest or one of these other crazy ideas, but those are way more uniquely mine and they feel more successful to me from a design point of view, not an execution point.
00:46:59
Speaker
Anywho, I think we can end that segment because I know all three of us just want to get to the last segment.
Humorous Segment: Eric's DMs
00:47:08
Speaker
Back to Eric. We decided that because Eric's DMs get inundated with requests from young women and men
00:47:22
Speaker
hoping to catch his eye that we would do a new segment and we call it the slide where we feature some of Eric's thirsty DMs. He is kind enough to let us read them. And in the after show, if you become a patron of our show, we will discuss these at length and perhaps Mary and I will offer these young ladies and gentlemen some advice on how to get Eric's attention.
00:47:52
Speaker
This is the best entertainment of my week. This is terrible. This slide. We're going to slow things down, draw back, pour some wine, light some candles, because we're sliding into Eric's DMs. Eggplant emoji.
00:48:19
Speaker
oh my god you're wheezing over there paul i don't understand what the issue is buddy i got my wife to record that i've never heard that voice out of her over in my life she sounds like some sort of vixen
00:48:35
Speaker
She is a lounge singer in the 40s out here. She is living life. Oh, my God. Okay, with that, it's time to explore the first DM that Eric has shared from his thirst trap collection. Paul's so excited. Hey, Eric. This is a dude, by the way.
00:48:54
Speaker
Excuse me, but you're incredibly beautiful. Oh my God. I saw you on the new Netflix show and I was like, damn, you could go down on me. That's for sure. I did not just say that. I am so sorry. It gets rough in there, folks. It gets scary in there sometimes. So thirsty.
00:49:23
Speaker
These sound like aren't my favorite. Oh my god. Vicky's a legend. Vicky is a legend. Oh my god. I'm sweating from that. Mary, can you imagine getting this in your DM? I don't have to imagine this to be honest. Can you imagine the audacity it takes to send a DM like this?
00:49:50
Speaker
No, no, we gotta, we gotta wait. You can go down on me any day. We gotta discuss this in the after show. We're gonna discuss this more in the after show. Oh my god. Give it to you. Thanks everyone for joining us today on our discussion about stealing like an artist and copying. We hope that you'll become a patron of ours.
00:50:12
Speaker
The information will be in the info provided with the podcast. This is our first episode. We're doing this, honestly, as a passion project among us. These are topics we want to talk about, and these are three people that all have mutual respect for each other and come from different angles.
00:50:31
Speaker
And we thought, if we're gonna be talking about all this stuff, why don't we just record it and share it and see if other people enjoy hearing about it as well. So honestly, this is a passion project. This wasn't some conceived podcast to try and increase reach and money and all this. This is honestly, our passion is talking about design and all these topics. So we hope that you'll tune in for our next episodes. We plan on releasing probably every two weeks. We're gonna try that.
00:51:00
Speaker
and we'll talk to you in the after show. Peace. Bye.